Move over Picasso!

One of the fun things I did on vacation was do some more drawing. I have been taking drawing lessons since March. I thought it was pretty hopeless, but discovered despite my lack of talent, with a good teacher, anything can be learned. To me it is amazing that I can produce anything that looks recognizable. I get all excited when I see my drawings, because I just can't believe I did anything that looks halfway decent.



I want to you look at the difference between the portrait of João I drew (albeit from memory) pre-instruction, with the portrait I drew on vacation. I think you can see pretty serious progress. The basic technique is to draw what you see and only what you see.

Of course there are some "tricks". For instance in the beginning we drew things upside down - Voilá this German horse (by some unknown artist). That is so you learn to draw what you really see, not what you think you see.



We also learned to draw using what is called "negative" space. That is, instead of drawing the flower in this Bromelia, I drew the spaces between the leaves and petals. That is to help with shape and size.



Ah.. perspective. That is so hard for me. In fact, I never finished those drawings. I hate drawing furniture, walls, still lifes. I have a lot of those unfinished drawings in my album. Maybe I hate the subject. Maybe I hate the fact that I just can't get it right. I don't know. I plan to start working on that some. You can see from the table drawing that this is not my strong suit. Trust me, it's a load better than my vases and chairs.



I do like, however, portrait drawing. I have tried my hand at animals, and so far so bad. Of course, haven't had any teaching in that area. So for now, will stick to people.



Next, I learned about proportion and measuring accurately. Don't do that so good either. We copied portraits of master artists for this step. This one is my best. It is Cranach's "Portrait of a Young Man in a Red Hat" (1600). I got him too fat in the face. I tend to just draw and forget to measure the sizing. Then I just hate to erase and fix it. In fact, probably my greatest enemy is my very short attention span and my hurry to finish up something.



Yesterday's class (a make-up class for me) was just a riot, as we worked on shading. The technique was so different. We darkened the paper and then we erased out the light sections. Oh so cool because I did it upside down and could see nothing until I turned it around and there was the guy. He's too skinny (there we go forgetting to measure again), but I just love it anyway. I think it's my best effort so far. Tomorrow we are going to work with charcoal to do another Picasso. I can hardly wait. I love doing new things. To accompany my learning in this area, I am reading all I can on art and drawing, including the fascinating "The Story of Art" by Gombrich (a definitive work in this area I understand). I am now doodling all the time to work on learning shading. Who would have "thunk" it? You can teach old dogs new tricks.



PS: Today, Friday, we worked in charcoal for the first time. That was really hard, but I loved it. So much fun doing another Picasso, one of my favorite artists. I ran out of time at the end, so he lacks detail work, but here is my portrait of Picasso as a young man.